The first week of April was meant to be one of recuperation and preparation; recuperating from the double whammy of Bryan and Steve returning to Shanghai to plunder its morality, and preparing for Keith to return for his one month of destroying the liver that has slowly rebuilt itself in the one year he has been away from Shanghai.
Sadly enough, this is a tale that has been told one too many times on this site: the fun never ends in a nightmarish sort of way. Upon my return to Shanghai from Chengdu, I rushed out to a dinner I had organized from Sichuan for my guest Theresa, and was greeted at the restaurant by the adorable sight of Lydia and Yvette waiting for the rest of us. It was adorable because they were meeting for the first time, and didn’t know that the other was Chinese, and so were conversing in English, which is always weird for me to see. It’s like me and Raphael talking in German, except that Lydia and Yvette’s English is 1000 times better than my German, and they’re both way hotter than Mr. Beck. I digress…
Dinner was followed by Babyface, where I was able to secure a large table at the last minute. Originally, I had done this to impress one of the Intel ladies who was hell-bent on inviting all the same people I was inviting to Babyface, and then I saw her at Babyface and remembered that she was a high-maintenance princess, and then proceeded to make the best of the situation by drinking as much as I could while watching my friends teach Lydia how to bring the inner hip-hop dancer out of her. The evening had gotten off to a rocky start as we entered the club to see Bonnie crying. She told us then that outside of Babyface she had been molested by a random Xinjiang dude, who then grabbed his crotch at her after she slapped him. The one and only time I ever made this gesture was when I was on the J.V. tennis team in high school and did this to an upperclassman during practice, and my first two reactions were: 1) wow, they do this in China too? and 2) I wish we had been outside to start some shit. Still, overall it was a positive experience (the dancing, not the molesting), but it was just a simple warm-up to the next night…
Looking good
…which was theGiorgio Armani “Prive” fashion show. Since the closest I’ve ever been to the “in” crowd was the one time I was serving coffee and dessert to my principal during the annual dinner theatre performance in my freshman year of high school, it was a big deal for me to be invited to this exclusive party. Sure, it was because one of my best friend’s girlfriend worked for the event planning company, but I was “in” nevertheless. So I put on my best fake A/X shirt and headed out with the rest of the crew to be fashionable for one night.
All smiling because we’re sitting in front of free gift bags
The reason why they should never let riff-raff like us into a glamorous, upper-crust party like Giorgio’s is because, well, there’s a lot of free stuff. Each seat at the fashion show was adorned with a pretty gift bag that had one bottle each of Armani perfume and cologne. After we watched the likes of Zhang Ziyi making thousands of dollars by showing up and pretending to be interested at the parade of anorexic Chinese models on the catwalk, we saw that many of the bags around us were still there as their owners were streaming out the exit. Mikkel and Chace and I scrambled toward the bags, but shouldn’t have been surprised that they were empty, as just minutes before there was a room with hundreds of Chinese people. Free stuff + Chinese people = No More Free Stuff. Learned that first-hand at Costco when I saw my mom’s eyes pop out at the free samples.
After the Armani party we trooped over to Laris on 3 on the Bund to enjoy the after-party, which is kinda like Costco in that there are little bit-sized pieces of free food being passed around, except instead of pieces of hot pocket we were talking caviar and truffles and stuff. After three glasses of champagne, Mike forgot that he was playing bourgeoisie for one night and camped himself in front of kitchen, literally intercepting every single hors d’oeuvre platter. In fact, he was the sole reason Shanghaiist wrote this in their day-after report:
Not much to report from the Vogue party. A whole lot of Mumm was imbibed. Armani appeared for about two minutes. And the food, while delicious, was hard to come by. Waiters who had the misfortune to appear with trays of hors d’oeuvres were literally wrestled to the ground by legions of hungry party-goers, particularly one rabid, red-faced maniac who learned was named Mike Wong.
Ok, maybe I made that last part was made up. Still, at one point in the evening, Mike was talking to Lydia and me when he suddenly stopped mid-sentence, opened his mouth really wide, and pointed to something behind us. Thinking it was someone important like Armani or perhaps Michael Bolton, we immediately turned around, only to come face to face with a place of mini-burgers. In an even funnier moment, Mike was surrounded by three different platters and picked at each one. I then informed him that he had just eaten eggplant, the thought of which ususally makes both of us want to vomit. He stopped, cried out” Aww man,” and then proceeded to search for the lox. It was that kind of night.
I got my shirt made for $10. These Armani people are all suckers
As the evening neared its end, I realized to myself that I had never been surrounded by this many drunk people before. This included elderly society types and dredges like ourselves. Mikkel had audaciously approached the bar and asked for an entire bottle of Chivas. He and Chace and Lucy’s friend Brian finished about half of it, and then cradled the remainder while arguing with the coat check ladies for half an hour because they were missing one of their gift bags. In the elevator with Bonnie, Nicole, Clint and Lydia, we encountered a malcontent who tried to start a fight because we were speaking English. To this day, we still talk about why we didn’t mutilate him given the odds. And given the fact that he was dressed like Ryan Seacrest. And I have yet to mention George’s friend (see below), who took it upon herself to make love to the floor for a good hour.
Dreaming of the catwalk, no doubt
At the end of the evening, as we stumbled into cabs (some going to Guandii, some going home to puke), I had time to reflect on how wonderful life was here in Shanghai. Good friends, good treats, and being in the same room as Giorgio inspired me to be a leathery, lascivious old man just like him in my later years. And here I had been the whole time, lost in the wilderness. Nothing like getting hammered to get your mind in focus. All in all, being surrounded by all this beauty and glamour reinforced the beauty and glamour that I know exists within myself. Now if only I could find some way to pull it out of this dorky, blogger-type guy and get him some real clothes!
The real Giorgio Armani models
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